• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Mon Remonda shuddered under impacts against her shields.

Ahead, Fel and his wingman lost speed. Wedge and Tycho rapidly overtook them. In a moment, Wedge could see them again, two dots that grew into interceptors blurred by rain and distance. There was only ocean beneath them, shore a mere kilometer or two off to starboard.

One of the interceptors dropped behind the other, losing ground rapidly, but maintaining the high-speed side-to-side maneuvering that was so effective at throwing off a pursuer’s aim. Wedge and Tycho squeezed off ranging shots.

Then the interceptor decelerated further, right into Wedge’s path. Reflex took over, twitching his yoke to port so that he veered out of its path.

Tycho veered in skillful mimicry of Wedge’s move—right into the interceptor’s path.

It should not have been a problem. At their relative speeds and courses, no collision was possible; he should have been well clear of the interceptor. But the decelerating vehicle exploded into a brilliant ball of fire and debris—and Tycho’s X-wing flew straight through the heart of the detonation.

Tycho emerged from the explosion, his X-wing trailing smoke, its S-foils shuddering. He rapidly lost ground on Wedge.

“One to Two, come in.”

There was no answer. Tycho banked to starboard, back toward land.

“Tycho, come in. Are you all right?”

His comm unit hissed, then words, partial words, emerged. “… failure … hold her … repulsorlifts out …”

As Wedge watched, Tycho’s starboard lower S-foil began to shake more ferociously, then to crumple under air friction. Ahead, the other TIE interceptor began to loop around for a head-to-head.

“Tycho, don’t try to hold her together. She’s a wreck. Get over land and punch out. Do you understand?”

“… land … understood.”

The other interceptor roared toward them.

Toward Tycho.

Wedge accelerated forward past his wingman, laser-straight at the interceptor. “Is that Fel again, or did we get lucky?”

“No luck for you, Wedge. This is your last engagement zone.”

The interceptor drifted up, firing. Wedge hit his trigger, saw his lasers pass harmlessly beneath the TIE.

Fel’s lasers didn’t miss. They chewed into the nose of Tycho’s X-wing. Fel shot past and began to bank again.

Wedge saw Tycho’s snubfighter shudder and begin to disintegrate at the nose. The cockpit’s cowling popped up and a moment later Tycho ejected, still half a kilometer short of the shore.

“Group, this is Leader. I need extravehicular pilot rescue at this position. Mark it and get someone here.” Wedge wrestled his X-wing around to confront Fel once more.

But the nimbler interceptor settled into position behind him, its lasers opening up, bracketing Wedge.

Wedge set his teeth and flew southward, clearing his head of distractions, letting the sensor board and targeting brackets become extra eyes.

Fel settled in on his tail and would not be shaken free. But the onetime Rogue had no more luck firing than Wedge did shaking him; burst after burst of laser fire flashed to the left, the right, beneath the X-wing as Wedge used every trick he knew to make the man miss.

Another violent crosswind hit Wedge. He didn’t struggle against it; he let it propel him toward shore, a sudden movement that caught Fel off guard. Then Fel, too, crossed into the wind and was pushed eastward, farther even than Wedge had been.

Wedge felt his spine stiffen. That was it. The interceptors were lighter than X-wings, with much broader cross sections—

He resumed his original course and waited until another crosswind hit him. As it propelled him shoreward, he wrenched his yoke that way, turning in the direction he was being shoved, and saw out his starboard viewport as Fel was victimized by the same wind. The interceptor rolled eastward, momentarily out of control.

Wedge maintained his loop, was pressed hard into his pilot’s couch as he came around …

And then, for a brief moment, his targeting brackets went green around Fel’s interceptor. Wedge fired and saw the red flashes of his lasers score the squint’s engines.

Fel’s interceptor dropped,